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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27506389">The Art of an Apology</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustaGibbsgirl/pseuds/JustaGibbsgirl'>JustaGibbsgirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCIS</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Kibbs, MIBBS, Slibbs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 03:27:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,864</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27506389</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustaGibbsgirl/pseuds/JustaGibbsgirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gibbs gets the chance to finally right a wrong. A story about how his healing relationship with Jack opened the door for a moment like this to exist. A Hollis-centered story but with plenty of established Slibbs and even a little Kibbs thrown in for good measure.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jethro Gibbs/Caitlin Todd, Jethro Gibbs/Hollis Mann, Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hollis timeline:</p><p>Joined Army - 1985<br/>Joined CID - 1996<br/>Gibbs relationship - Nov 2006-October 2007<br/>Retired - Nov 18, 2007<br/>Married - 2012 (?) Came back from Hawaii<br/>DoD eps - Jan 2014, Feb 2015<br/>Divorced - 2019<br/>Gibbs/Jack - Nov 2017-Dec 2020</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The very last place she wanted to be at 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning was surrounded by her superiors being asked for a sit rep on a case from 15 years ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A former associate of Mamoun Sharif.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And there it was. That name. Spoken out loud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she had expected to walk into the conference room and take an ass kicking that early in the morning, she would have at least opted for her shit-kickers instead of the 3 inch heels that matched her outfit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Agent Mann, Sharif was one of your cases, correct?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her heart barrel rolled and nosedived into her stomach. There it was again. But this time, the name came with an addendum, an attachment that stunted all coherent thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This was the case you worked with Agent Gibbs?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bulletproof vest would have been a welcome addition to her pinstripe suit today. An easy way to absorb all of the verbal shrapnel she was taking in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hollis?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was now fully aware of every eye in the room being fixated on her. Never the one to let a man, let alone an entire roomful of them, get the better of her, she met every one of their gazes individually before she answered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>                                     ****</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two hours and exactly twenty-seven minutes later, she pushed the glass door hard, notepad in hand, trying not to look desperate in her attempt to make a quick getaway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heels clicking against cool granite floors, each step matched a thought in her brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Round One : Sharif. Gibbs. Trust. Basement. Boat. Beer. Charming. Cheap Date. Apology.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Round Two: Sharif. Gibbs. Eyes. Lips. Interference. Sawdust. Doorbell. Is that all you came for?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Settling hard into her office chair, legs crossed, head tipped back to rest against the leather, she willed her racing heart to settle. Knowing full well that if she allowed her eyes to flutter shut, even for a millisecond, she would once again find herself in the eye of the hurricane, measuring time until the strong Gibbsian force winds leveled her. But she did it anyway, allowing the echoes of their first moments to cascade over her, slipping past the walls she had so carefully and meticulously pieced together over the past 15 years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The attraction had been instantaneous. For her, at least. But the disadvantage had been all hers as well. No frills. No fuss. No makeup. Camo instead of Calvin Klein. Shit-kickers instead of Spade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was how professional she had needed to be in light of every single nerve in her body vibrating with curiosity. He had stood and accepted her outstretched hand. And then there had been those blue eyes. Those piercing, passionate, steel blue eyes that had unnerved her and caused her to falter. To stutter out an introduction. She had never felt a need or a want for a man so quickly, so forcefully, in her life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The men who had worked with her, who had taken orders from her, had done so without question, without hesitation. She had said Jump and they had asked How high, how far, and how long. But this man- this man had been the antithesis of every person in her command. Not only had he questioned her methods, her authority, her leadership, but he’d seemed to take personal pleasure in busting her balls every chance he got. And she had taken absolute pleasure in matching him step for combat-boot-covered step.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The attraction, the magnetism, the back and forth, the dip and sway between them. It was the tangible. It was the intangible. It was arms resting on a utility belt, full defensive posture, telling him they were gonna need an umbrella for that pissing match even though she knew it would take every inch of a goddamn parachute to keep him dry. It was the sexiness of a loyalty and passion to his job, to his team and to his word. It was a cheap date of coffee and Chinese food. It was a stick of gum passed to her in front of a lab monitor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a pact made with eyes only.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the loss. The loss that she had seen reflected daily in his eyes, in his weighted sighs, the measured steps, the slump of his shoulders, and in the empty bottles of basement bourbon. It was the loss that she had seen in him but had never been privy to the details.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet, there was no place she could run that would allow her the distance she needed to keep the Marine’s ocean blue eyes from appearing in her mind. Hawaii damn sure hadn’t been far enough away. And once she had realized she couldn’t outrun him, outrun the echoed memories and the battered bruising of her own heart, she had returned to DC, dragging every shredded piece of herself and her dignity with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why hadn’t she called him when she returned? Why did she wait until their paths crossed due to work? Because the man of no words, the functional mute, had made himself pretty damn clear thirteen years ago that she would be competing with ghosts. That he hadn’t moved on. That he might never move on. It was in his eyes, it was in his words, it was in every molecule of sawdust that had sifted down between them when she had tried to ask the questions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was still haunted by Stephanie’s words that fateful night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good luck.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The redhead had said it simply, said it as if the universe hadn’t already predetermined their fate. As if their relationship </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> actually had a fighting chance. That she hadn’t just been the next in a long line of mistakes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the hairline crack that had started weeks previous, had dissolved into a full blown fracture that night as the soft strains of a child’s piano playing had caught them both unawares.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And six years later, Hollis had come back to that basement, peace offering in hand, looking for a sense of closure. Her mother had always told her that an apology was a good way to have the last word. So she had done it. Had he deserved her apology? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Abso-fucking-lutely not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Did she give it anyway? She absolutely did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being back in the basement that time had poured at </span>
  <em>
    <span>least </span>
  </em>
  <span>a pound or so of salt into a wound that she thought had scarred over. That she thought had at least enough of a scab to be adverse to the sting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had meant every damn word when she had told him that it took strength to apologize. An apology to him, though? That had taken a Herculean effort that not even she was aware she possessed.  And even in the low lights of that basement, musty and unforgiving, she had seen not one apologetic feeling answered back against his features. So she had swallowed down the bitter words that strangled at her throat, bit back the scathing, scalding hot lacerations that she had wanted to lay on his heart, and she had asked for forgiveness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then came the second wave, the 'I don't need you mixed up in me' moment a year later. And as much as she hated to admit it, that one had stung the most. It didn't lessen the bite to know he hadn't meant it. She had read at least that much in his eyes, had picked up at least one ability from the silver-haired Marine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had she told him about the divorce? It certainly wasn’t a state secret. It just…hadn’t worked. She had been trying to fill a hole. A Gibbs sized void that no other man seemed to fit in. And the apology to her now ex-husband </span>
  <b>
    <em>had </em>
  </b>
  <span>been real. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t measure up and chances were overwhelmingly good that no man ever would. At least it had only taken her one marriage to realize she wasn’t cut out for it.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>                                   ****</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The delivery of the Sharif file to NCIS Headquarters, her superior had informed her, was pertinent to a classified case and that her presence was expected in MTAC with Director Vance at 0900 the next morning. Any questions they had would be directed towards her and she was to give them her full cooperation. She’d smirked only slightly at the words “full cooperation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>                                 ****</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stepping into the elevator at NCIS, all thoughts of her time spent at the agency came whooshing back. Heart hammering, thudding, pounding, she was sure her visitor badge was visibly shaking from the thunderstorm inside her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t prepared for the ding that noted her arrival. It came too soon. It didn’t allow her the extra moment she needed to arrange her thoughts properly. But when the doors slid open, nothing on her face read fear or trepidation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Immediately scanning the room, she felt safe in the assumption that he wasn’t there. An early case maybe? A moment of disappointment found her heart before her brain had a chance to slap it away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She walked slowly, but purposefully, knowing that he could round the corner at any moment, coffee in hand, barking out orders. Three more steps and she ended up in front of McGee, who had stopped dead center of the bullpen when he realized it was her. A warm smile curved her lips. She’d always liked McGee. Never a time when he couldn’t click a few buttons and surprise the hell out of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiled back, but looked confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh, Boss isn’t here, Colonel, uh… Agent Mann…uh, Hollis.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not here to see him, McGee.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brows furrowed, lips pushed out slightly and confusion settling even deeper on his features, his stuttering continued.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, uh, then, uh, why…” His words drifted off as she waved her hand towards the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Meeting with Vance in MTAC. 0900.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah.” He tapped his fingers nervously against the file in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nodded at his clarification.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just gonna...” And she pointed again towards the upper level.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right. Of course. The Director doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Found that out the hard way once...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes leveled with his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shrugged his shoulders sheepishly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“…or twice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good to see you, McGee.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You too, Colonel, uh…Agent Mann…uh, Hollis.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaking his head at his third set of faltering words, he stood rooted to the spot as she made her way up the stairs. She could feel his eyes on her and could almost see the mental wheels spinning as he no doubt debated his options.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Gibbs should know.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Gibbs shouldn't know.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Gibbs will have my ass if he doesn't know.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She might have laughed if she wasn't such an invested actor in the scenarios that were playing out in McGee's head. She wondered if he was feeling a phantom Gibbs' smack, wondered who he was so furiously typing his text message to, wondered how long it would take the news of her arrival to get to the man she wanted to see and avoid in equal measure.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The vibration in her back pocket had Bishop lifting slightly out of the passenger seat, reaching for her phone. Fingers sliding across the screen, a text from McGee appeared.</p>
<p><br/>Quickly scanning the message, all she could do was tip her head back against the seat and sigh. The side eye glare that Gibbs landed on her was loud enough that she heard <em>and</em> felt it without opening her eyes.</p>
<p><br/>Dropping off the dog tags and possessions to a victim's family had already given them both a set of emotional baggage that could do without the addition of a carry-on this early on a Friday.</p>
<p><br/>“Bishop.”</p>
<p><br/>It wasn’t a question. Hell, it was barely even a statement. And it had taken exactly 3.2 seconds longer than expected.</p>
<p><br/>Her response was to lift the phone and give it a slight shake in his direction.</p>
<p><br/>“McGee.”</p>
<p><br/>His nod at her answer and the silence that followed asked the next question for him.</p>
<p><br/>Bishop’s words were barely audible.</p>
<p><br/>“He, uh…”</p>
<p><br/>Her words continued to fidget along with her fingers.</p>
<p><br/>“He said that, uh…”</p>
<p><br/>The tightening of the senior agent’s jaw, the tell that always preceded his bark, twitched against his cheek. Maybe if she didn’t say the actual name out loud, it would lessen the blow that she somehow knew was coming behind it.</p>
<p><br/>“Uh, DoD is meeting with the Director this morning.”</p>
<p><br/>Acknowledgement of the weight of her words came in the form of actions. A deep breath, an ever so slight tightening of the hand on the steering wheel, and…a softening of his features that Bishop almost didn’t catch.</p>
<p><br/>She waited a beat and then took a chance.</p>
<p><br/>“She was one of the good ones, huh?”</p>
<p><br/>Gibbs tilted his head, glancing over, acknowledging the truth of what Bishop had said.</p>
<p><br/>“Yeah. She was.”</p>
<p><br/>Bishop nodded her head, silently awestruck that he had answered. Gaining a miniscule amount of courage from his answer, she tried for another one.</p>
<p><br/>“Funny how she showed up after our CID case this week. Almost a…” But the final word stuck in her throat as she realized what she had been about to say.</p>
<p><br/>Funny, hell. He had a few choice words for it and “funny” didn’t even make the top ten.</p>
<p><br/>Suddenly Rule 39 was taking up a whole lot of headroom in the interior of the car around them.</p>
<p><br/>But, his brain reminded him, Hollis had never needed to manufacture a reason to see him. It simply wasn’t her style. He had accused her of it years ago and she had prickled immediately.</p>
<p><br/>Her marching orders <em>had</em> come from the Army that day even though her rank would have easily let her skip that particular crime scene. And no matter the awkward, wrinkled moments that she knew would certainly exist, she still chose to see him.</p>
<p><br/>Later that same day, she had spit out the same “there’s no such thing as a coincidence” rhetoric to his very own team. When he had taken her to bed that night he had found himself watching her as she slept, wondering how the captivating woman next to him could be so unlike the others, and yet capture his heart tenfold beyond them.</p>
<p><br/>Bishop fidgeted again in the seat next to him, no doubt trying to gauge the level of his rankled silence but he kept his eyes straight ahead, as he tried to remind himself that he didn’t believe in coincidences. Except…</p>
<p><br/>Except sometimes the odds simply stacked up too high. Sometimes CID showed up at a crime scene and sometimes DoD piggybacked right behind them. He wondered which one of the gods decided he’d needed a pummeling today. Probably that bastard Hermes.</p>
<p><br/>****</p>
<p><br/>Green.</p>
<p><br/>Three days ago that’s all he had seen as he pulled into the early morning crime scene. Black berets and green ACU’s. And it had jerked him back <em>hard</em>. Jerked him back fifteen years worth of hard.</p>
<p><br/>Stomach lurching at the sight of the Army green, he had fought the hammering in his chest. Retired or not, Hawaii or not, married or not, he always fought hard against the urge to look for the one set of ACU’s that he knew <em>wouldn’t</em> be there but the only ones he always <em>wanted</em> to be.</p>
<p><br/>Army CID swarming everywhere, NCIS attempting to gain control of the area and all he could think about, all he could focus on, all he could see in his mind's eye was one Lieutenant Colonel whose smug smirking grin had lit a fire in him from day one. His mind chided him. Fire? That woman wasn’t fire. She was a goddamn Mt. Vesuvius.</p>
<p><br/>And when the lead CID officer at the crime scene had tried to fight him over jurisdiction, he’d smiled at the memory of the only Army green that had ever won that fight.</p>
<p><br/>This morning though, Bishop knew at least enough to stay silent on the drive. And he was appreciative as his mind rewound to a sandblast and a dead Marine at the Army-Navy Club.</p>
<p><br/>******</p>
<p><br/>One long appreciative glance from the top of her black beret to the tip of her combat boots had given him a starting point for the woman who had demanded his trust and respect but had earned it within minutes of an introduction. The woman, who for all intents and purposes, was his equal.</p>
<p><br/>The first time, the very first time his blues had met whatever brilliant color green her eyes had been that day, he saw everything he had needed to know about her- good, bad or Army.</p>
<p><br/>She’d appreciated and acknowledged the strength and attention to detail his team excelled at. She’d conceded to her own mistakes. He easily recognized the strength she possessed. He knew that it took one badass kind of female to rise through the ranks to the place she had ultimately landed. She’d commanded every room she entered with her piercing gaze, her ballsy brass knuckle approach and her unfiltered, unknowing beauty.</p>
<p><br/>He’d only ever seen her off her game once. The way she had stuttered when introducing herself. Beyond that, the woman simply didn’t falter. Serving with her, under the weighted umbrella of war, no doubt would have been one helluva privilege.</p>
<p><br/>If the basic human need for companionship existed in her, no one would ever have known it, hidden from sight, tempered by the call of duty, but yet sniper-ready to strike if ever given the opportunity. And he had been her opportunity, if only by accident. He had been her grey area. At the time, he had skirted as far around the idea as he could.</p>
<p><br/>But she had let him in - believing, trusting - that he had wanted her. Believing and trusting that love was something that could ultimately find them.</p>
<p><br/>She had even said she wasn’t asking for promises. Just the clarification that he was sticking around.</p>
<p><br/>“I wanna start building something, and I wanna build it with you”.</p>
<p><br/>Everything about him had told her that he wasn’t cut out for promises. The only thing he seemed cut out for was breaking them. But she had tried. And she had tried without the knowledge of his Kryptonite.</p>
<p><br/>Hollis had known nothing of Shannon. Nothing of Kelly. He had purposely withheld them from her. The others had at least known. But he hadn’t even given her the courtesy.</p>
<p><br/>“Gonna wake up in a week or a month and realize you threw away something good.” And goddamned if she hadn’t been right. Regret was not a color he wore well, or often, but Hollis’ name would forever be tainted with the color in his mind. No matter how it had ultimately ended, he would never deny that it had been real and solid with her.</p>
<p><br/>****</p>
<p><br/>The drive back to the Navy Yard continued in silence. No questions. No answers. There was a medicine ball quality to the silence, rounded and dense and thick. No sharp corners in his memories. Just smooth, circular ones that resonated over and over. His hand gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.</p>
<p><br/>Fighting the memory of her was something he had long ago stopped. He’d simply let her filter in, whenever she pleased. It seemed like the harder he tried to fight it, the more effort he put into keeping himself closed off, the easier it was to pretend that he hadn’t been an asshole.</p>
<p><br/>Because that’s what he had always done. If it ain’t broke…</p>
<p>And then Jack blew in.</p>
<p><br/>Jack.</p>
<p><br/>His very own California hurricane. And she had changed everything about him. Not because he allowed her to, but because it had happened so far under the radar that he hadn’t had the chance to put up his deflector shields. Or maybe he had just gotten tired of the fight, tired of the beating his heart took every day, tired of dragging the regret and ache around with him day in and day out.</p>
<p><br/>After Shannon, he kept racking up the disappointments, disguised as marriages. Shannon had always been the expected one. From that first moment at the train station, fate had given him no other option.</p>
<p><br/>The laundry list of women after Shannon? They were all lessons. Every damn one of them. Most were lessons on what <em>not</em> to do, obviously. But there were a couple that became lessons on what <em>to</em> do.</p>
<p><br/>Diane, Rebecca, Jenny, Stephanie, Ellen…he’d walked away from all of them willingly.</p>
<p><br/>The first one he hadn’t was Kate, a beautiful precursor to Jack.</p>
<p><br/>The prompt to do things differently had ultimately started with Special Agent Caitlin Todd. And Lord, how he missed that woman. All Secret Service brass, brown doe eyes and a set of balls the size of some frogs he didn’t even know the name of. The brilliant thousand watt grin that he still leaned on to get through dark moments. Some days, no matter what woman currently had a place in bed next to him, he had <em>ached</em> for Kate.</p>
<p><br/>She had managed to found a hole in his armor, a singular pin drop of a hole, under the smug smirking bastard qualities. And once she had found the first one, suddenly he was a cheese grater, holes everywhere, allowing her the most intimate of access.</p>
<p><br/>It had been new and fresh and shiny. That part of a new relationship that, like a good book, you simply can’t put down. Stolen looks, stolen touches, stolen elevator kisses and ass grabs.</p>
<p><br/>Driving to interview a suspect, a hand on her knee, thumb drawing small circles as she attempted to brief him from her pile of notes. The ever present oral fixation that derailed his thoughts and brought his brain crashing below his belt. The smile. The smile that destroyed him and resurrected him all at once. Kate had been his phoenix, helping him rise from the ashes.</p>
<p><br/>She had teased him. Asked him when he knew he first wanted her, but with the condition of wanting ALL of her. The balls and the brass and the lollipops and innocence.</p>
<p><br/>And then she was gone. Just like the rest of them. A modern day Shakespearean tragedy, writing itself in real time. The twisted ironies, the gut wrenching solitude. The parallel lines of marriages that ended up as triangles when the memory of Shannon appeared. All of them had competed with a ghost that they never saw, never knew and had no way to vanquish.</p>
<p><br/>Including Hollis. The difference was, Hollis was the unexpected one. The one that he never expected to see again, yet she kept reappearing. Even when he thought he didn’t need her, she demanded his eyes on her. Those hazel eyes, snapping and sparking, willing him into submission, daring him to leap, reminding him that whether he wanted her friendship or not, it was a comfort that would always find him.</p>
<p><br/>“It’s not your call. I’ll take my chances. I can handle myself.”</p>
<p><br/>There had even been moments of clarity in his relationship with Jack that had made him stop dead center of the living room, dirty dishes and empty beer bottle in hand. Something she would say, without the previous knowledge of Hollis, that would bring him to a screeching halt.</p>
<p><br/>Realization would wash over him, his gut would twist, his heart would pinch, and he would have to shake his head to clear it of the first Army blonde to find the hairline crack in the cement barriers within him.</p>
<p><br/>Guilt would tug at him the rest of the night and Jack would become an unwitting victim to his snarkiness, trying desperately to find the wound that was causing the pain but only succeeding in creating a deeper hole for him to sink into.</p>
<p><br/>But even he could concede that Jack had changed him. Because when she had left, he had let her go. Albeit not willingly. And not without sadness but, most noticeably, without regret.</p>
<p><br/>There was a drop of California sunshine, roots curling every which way inside of him, that proved the divergence from the man who had let years of sawdust dull his senses.</p>
<p><br/>Facing Hollis today would be different. It would look different. It would feel different.</p>
<p><br/>And, thanks to one Jack Sloane, it would <em>be</em> different.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hollis' divorce is not canon, although it probably should be. Creative liberties were taken.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Almost as if he had willed her into existence, there she was, her straight back Army stance leaving little question as to whether or not it was her. But no DoD dress-up doll today. Jeans, boots, soft grey sweater. Hair pulled back and clipped, jacket and purse casual over her arm, files in hand. The simplicity of her beauty had always been what struck him to his very core. Today, playing Romeo to her place on the balcony above him, was no different.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Deep in her conversation with Vance, unaware of his presence, he took the opportunity to collect himself, to talk down his reaction to her, both visceral and emotional. Though not in the habit of leering after another man’s wife, Hollis was a woman who gave him considerable pause.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a previous moment in time, he had owned her body. He had left marks on every inch of her, assuring that no part of the ACU’s could be uncovered without a mark of his territory. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she came to him in camo, hair braided tight, aching for his fingers to undo her, he had ravaged her. Raw, punishing pleasure that had left bruising handprints on her ass and blood drawn claw marks on his. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she had come to him in softness, the blonde waves framing her face, a hint of lipstick, he had created a map of her smooth curves, tracing the freckles until each one was fully committed to memory. With them, there had been no in between.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>From his place in the bullpen, he studied her profile.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Who was this woman? He realized, regretfully, that he had never taken the time to find out. She deserved better than he had given her. Underneath the Army camo, under the harsh military exterior, she was still a woman. A stunning, beautiful and breathtaking woman. And he had never told her as much except in the soft lights of the bedroom.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Coffee in hand, his steps were unhurried in their forward motion. If she had seen him, if she had picked up on the electrical charge that always bounced around them, she made no inference to the fact.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bass drum that had started as a solo inside of his chest had now reached symphonic proportions. His feet brought him to a stopping place between his two friends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Casual Friday, Hollis?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Spoken with a coffee cup to his lips, it was a failed attempt to hide the smile that played into his words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One quirked eyebrow was offered as a response. Reaching out and patting his lapel, smoothing it down, she picked at an imaginary piece of fuzz.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Taking in the dark, almost charcoal grey sweater underneath his jacket that set his eyes to the ocean and back, she couldn’t help but wonder…a woman’s touch?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re</span>
  </em>
  <span> certainly dressing better these days.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vance volleyed his gaze back and forth. “Well,” sliding his hands behind his back and dipping his head slightly. “I’ll just leave you two to it then.” He nodded his thanks to her before he walked back into MTAC.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The distance between them was now inches, though it felt like miles. The burden of the silence between them was the length of a heartbeat. It was the length of ten heartbeats, it was the length of 15 years worth of heartbeats.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Been meanin to call ya.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My number hasn’t changed, Jethro.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His name on her lips was the comfort of a warm blanket on a snowy DC night. It was delicious and sweet. It wrapped around him and everything he thought he had lost with her was now front and center, the pain demanding to be seen. Brilliant blue crashed hard into opal green.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another wave of regret made it past the seawall and crested. There was not one time that those eyes hadn’t taken his breath. In anger. In pain. In love.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But this wasn’t the time for small talk. He knew it. She knew it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Two years ago, sitting in his truck, debating on his apology to Jack after the miracle of finding Phineas, he had silently vowed to himself the assurance of another apology. The one he owed to Hollis.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An apology in a corner booth at the diner, over coffee, would work. It would almost be expected. Almost. But asking her to trudge her way to the basement again? Where the heavily armed memories of their time together could assault them both? Even he could appreciate the weight that the sawdust in that room carried. Jack had called it a sanctuary of sawdust and she hadn’t been wrong.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cool and reserved on the outside, heart thudding hard against her ribs on the inside, she now tried to read something, anything, in his eyes. Still finding the shadowed wall within them that had blocked her path before, she took a breath, and once again made the decision for them both.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I should really be go—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Busy later?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their words overlapped each others, causing a small smile to tug at the corner of his mouth. He repeated himself quickly before she had a chance to decide if it was fight or flight she wanted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could see the weight of what he was asking reflected in her eyes. Asking once more for her to come to him, instead of the other way around. Because he didn’t need an audience. He didn’t need to explain to Dr. Walter Reed Trauma Surgeon why the need to speak to his wife was so great.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She weighed his question on the scale of her heart. She already knew by searching his gaze that what he was asking was more than a friendly visit. It was more than a case related visit. So what then? Ultimately she couldn’t say no. They both knew that much at least. But still…she had barely had a text much less a phone call from him over the past 5 years. What had changed?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes when she answered, but her words made his smile grow wider.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll bring dinner?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He took one long, deep breath, in and out, thankful that their friendship allowed her the opportunity to say yes, even after…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes flickered to his.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“I’ll</span>
  </em>
  <span> take care of dinner. You just bring…you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His last word was spoken softly, eyes washing over her, appreciative and sincere.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded her agreement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“C’mon, I’ll walk you out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand slipped to the small of her back as if no time had passed, as if it was natural, as if he wasn’t setting fire to her sweater with just his fingertips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew better than to do it, knew how his body would react. But like Icarus flying too close to the sun, it was something he had to do simply to see if he could do it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The elevator ride was a silent one but the electric charge in the air created that familiar voltage between them. He waited as she signed herself out, returned her visitor badge, and fell into step beside him. Three football fields of parking lot space around them and they walked close enough for their arms to brush with every step. And how telling it was that neither one of them pulled away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stopped in front of her car, he waited as she dug for her keys. As she pulled them out, the realization hit her too late that something had caught in the key ring. The object disentangled as she lifted them out and it fell to the ground between them. Knowing right away his knee would not allow him the chivalrous act of picking it up, she bent quickly and recovered it, trying to slide the object back to the confines of her purse without notice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, eyes dropping to the thin carpenter pencil whose wood had been worried almost to the point of breakage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could easily have been smug about it. About the fact that she still kept a piece of him with her after 15 years when he knew damn well she didn’t keep a piece of anyone who had wronged her. And the man he was 15 years ago would have allowed him that smug satisfaction. But the thought of a grey Army jacket tucked safely into a corner of his basement, a memory</span>
  <em>
    <span> he </span>
  </em>
  <span>simply hadn’t been able to discard,  cut off his words before they even tickled his throat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The three long years he had spent with Jack, the even longer years he had spent under the care of one Dr. Grace Conafalone, had created a smoothness on his rough edges that he would admit to no one and that would not allow him to call Hollis out on her hidden memory.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The ever so slight pink in her cheeks was the only indication of a blush, the only indication of embarrassment at still hanging on to a memory, to a man who had caused more problems than he had solved. Without realizing it, his thumb slid back and forth over her pulse point, wordlessly assuring her that he didn’t need an explanation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At her slight tug, his hand dropped away and she returned the pencil to its safe spot in the pocket of her purse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shrugged as if the entire scene was insignificant but the softness of her voice betrayed her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess I thought you might need it back one day.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their eyes met and held and they both conceded to her lie. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He held the door while she slid into her seat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“6?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded her agreement. “I’ll bring dessert. Small batch?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nah, no dessert. Coffee.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes narrowed slightly, brows furrowed, as she studied his words, a question forming in her mind. No bourbon?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just stop by the diner. Elaine will remember you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No doubt that she would. And no doubt that her coffee would be made to order without even having to ask. Elaine would glance up when the door chimed, a genuine look of surprise for two blinks of an eye (no more), and nod in agreement when she saw Hollis’ smile. Two coffees would meet her hands, an “on-the-house-welcome-back,” knowing look passing between the two women.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And Hol?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hand stilled on the door handle as his eyes found hers again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t really need to bring the pencil. Just bring you.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It had honestly been an accident the first time it had happened, an insignificant occurrence that neither had noticed. The carpenter pencil had slipped off the edge of the lumber he was measuring. Dipping under the frame, she had grabbed it off the floor as she headed to the work table for a beer. She had slid it in her back pocket while she opened the bottle and subsequently forgotten about it. And her jeans had come off in such a hurry an hour and a half later that the pencil was long forgotten until laundry day that weekend.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thin pencil had seemed decidedly out of place in her designer purse. But oddly, it had given her a certain measure of comfort in the days it had resided there before she begrudgingly handed it back to him the following weekend. He’d laughed, kissed her soundly, and tucked it behind his ear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It happened exactly four more times before he had finally stopped her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shaking his head and chuckling, “You don’t have to keep bringin ‘em back, Hol. Got a million of ‘em.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And so the pile in her nightstand had grown a little bigger with each passing month, different sizes, different colors, different logos. She always smiled and shook her head when she realized another one had been pilfered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was not a sentimental woman. Keeping T-shirts or sweatshirts or boxers of former lovers had never held any sort of meaning for her. She would return jewelry given, toss out letters, delete texts. She didn’t need to be reminded of her mistakes and she certainly didn’t need to be hit over the head with memories every day. But the pencils had stayed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Packing for Hawaii had been swift, emotionally driven and, for a meticulous woman such as herself, very </span>
  <em>
    <span>un</span>
  </em>
  <span>-meticulous. She simply had not been able to pack quickly enough. Drawers had been unceremoniously dumped into totes, clothes were tossed into bags and locks were changed so she could save herself the pain of asking for her key back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even in the unpacking, she had only picked out what was absolutely necessary to exist in the world. Months later, totes were still stacked in the corner of every room, almost as if she knew that she wouldn’t last; as if she knew that the perfect days would only shelter her pain, not heal it; as if she knew that what she was running from would always find her, no matter if it was five thousand miles between them…or five.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Army had taught her that journaling was a way to hold on to sanity. Words leaking out of her instead of tears. Pain pushing the pencil across the paper, sometimes chapters at a time. Fear and laughter intermingling like old friends, connected by a thin line of graphite. Sometimes she had felt that the thread that she was hanging on by each day was threaded through the end of that writing tool.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even after joining CID, she had needed the nightly respite, the letdown of each day. Before Jethro, there had been no need to explain about her writing. She had simply never allowed anyone to get close enough to that moment of the day for her. But her first night with him, that meeting of eyes, that frenzied, intense, slick heat that had caught up both of them…that night she had laid awake an hour after he drifted off, debating the need to drop memories into the pensieve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a half hour later when he’d come searching for her. Yawning, rubbing a hand across his cheek, he’d made no business about trying to be quiet. Her deer in the headlights look had given him pause. He’d cocked his head to one side, curious, but patient. He’d read the defensiveness in her eyes, almost to the point of fear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could easily have found her bed again, and waited for her to slide back in next to him. Could have taken the fear and defensiveness in her eyes and let her hold on to it privately. But this woman, so tenacious in every aspect of her life, the woman who showed no fear and no flaws, had unwittingly given him an opportunity. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The time frame to figure out that opportunity, however, had been measured in half seconds. His gaze had taken in the protective grip she’d had on the book in her lap. And while he hadn’t been particularly interested in the book, he had been interested in </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So his cobalt blues had met and held her peridot greens as he’d shuffled across the room to the couch. He had simply needed her to understand, without words, that she was safe with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sliding in behind her, adjusting so she was situated between his legs, his body had reacted to her immediately through the thin fabric of his boxers and her silk. She’d tensed, not realizing that he hadn’t come out looking for round three. He’d tipped his head back to the arm of the couch, and let his hands drop to her hips. It took one full minute, sixty long debated seconds, for her to discern his motives.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Two months prior, she had looked him dead in the eye in the low light of a musty basement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In spite of the fact you don’t trust anyone, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to have to trust me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he had. Without pretense, without prior knowledge. The CID profile had been pinpoint accurate about his loyalty. And, considering the prior between the sheets activities of the night, it was dead-on the money about being passionate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So now it was her turn. Trusting someone in the field took a read on body language, a top of the class interrogation technique. Trusting someone in the bedroom, in the space of her heart… that took a technique she was still in the throes of perfecting. All the Army training in the world had still never been able to help her fight the insecurity of her own heart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most men had thought they could tame her, break her, command the independence right out of her. She’d tensed even then at the thought. And at the tensing of her muscles under his hands, the only movement he’d made was to let his thumbs start drawing slow circles on her hips. With his eyes still closed, breathing still even, he had let her decide the next step.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> It was another full minute of weighing the trust. Another sixty seconds of questioning the chance that this man had of breaking her heart and if it would be worth it. If the end would justify the means. The Army had taught her to anticipate, to look not only ten steps ahead, but one hundred steps ahead in every direction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe that’s where the relationship failures had started. Maybe she was so dead focused on them ending that she had never let herself enjoy what they were. So, in that moment, a decision had been made. She had eased back against his chest, his hand sliding across to rest on her stomach, her knees propped up and she’d begun to finish the page in the journal that now had his name in it.</span>
</p>
<p><span>One year later, a Hawaiian breeze sweet against her skin, she had picked up her journal – </span> <span>frayed edges, worn out cover, the book feeling double its weight because of the heaviness of the words inside of it.</span></p>
<p>
  <span>Her fingers had dug into her purse, tipping and sliding items around, searching for the ever present pile of writing tools that always seemed to accumulate at the bottom. But that night, her fingers had closed around a flat wooden pencil, the edges worn down almost to the lead beneath from the way she had used it as a security blanket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The signal that made it to her brain was two seconds too late and the pencil’s memories became clear just as her mind and heart were connecting the wires.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The impression of their time together was smoothed into the poplar wood that encased the lead beneath it. She turned it over in her hand. And then again. Exactly 37 minutes went by without anything but her thumb moving back and forth across the weathered logo of the hardware store. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The echoes of sawdust and midnight conversations, of beers and bourbon, of a passion that had eclipsed every lover that had come before him were etched into the grain of that simple carpenter’s pencil. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took exactly 14 more minutes for her to decide to use it. And 3 minutes more to decide to use it to write about him. Somehow, the wound wasn’t quite so bad when she used the comfort of that pencil to stitch it up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So the pencils had stayed. A bundle of thin, flat, weightless graphite and wood that took up no more space in her nightstand than a bottle of water. They became her writing companions, soaking up what was left of her at the end of every day and spilling it back onto the clean white sheets of paper. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her new husband, for all of his brilliance, was brilliantly unaware of the wound that she woke up to each morning. The one that required a different amount of dissolvable stitches each day. The one that, not for lack of trying, simply would not disappear, would not scab over, but still managed to leave a permanent scar</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She knew that the pencils were the blades that spliced it back open each night. Her argument for hanging on to them was flimsy at best. Coercing herself into keeping them after every journal entry was a battle of wills. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were six months into their marriage before he had noticed the carpentry tool. He had wandered out in the middle of the night as Gibbs had, surprising her, also as Gibbs had. He was a heavy sleeper, the weighted hours of surgeries and hospital demands allowing him the blissful relief of uninterrupted slumber every night. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Standing in front of her, groggy but aware, his focus had landed on the pencil between her fingers. If the oddness of it struck him, he made no mention. He had taken in the breadth of what she was doing, as what he disseminated as a need for privacy, kissed the top of her head, and wandered back to their bedroom. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her mind paralleled the two situations, measured one man against another. With all the linings stripped away, everything laid out bare, there really was no comparison to be made. One measured up, and one didn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her husband, God love him, had tried to understand. For Christmas that year he had been so proud of himself, so thrilled to have found, what he thought to be, the perfect present. He had been so anxious, all smiles and love, while she was unwrapping the small thin package.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The colored paper had slid away and there in her lap was an elegant, silver-top box. The heaviness of it had surprised her. By then he had been practically bursting for her to lift the lid and examine the items within it. Her heart had caught in her throat as soon as the top was opened. Two silver writing tools - one pencil, one pen – shone up at her. She could feel his excited humming next to her, anxious for her reaction. She had slowly lifted the pencil to examine it, even though her heart already knew that these items would never touch paper, not by her hand. She rolled it between her fingers, her eyes catching on words engraved into its length.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lt. Col. Hollis Mann</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> etched in perfect script, reflected back at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The gift had remained in the box. Was still in the box to this day. Once or twice after that he had caught her still journaling with the “second B is for bastard” tool. He never questioned her about it but his eyes had spoken volumes. Some days she hated herself for not being able to let them go.</span>
</p>
<p> <span>****</span></p>
<p>
  <span>An hour before she was to meet him found her sitting anxiously on the edge of her couch cushions, the pad of her thumb smoothing slowly over the already worn poplar wood. Elbows resting on her knees, the pencil held between both hands, studying it as if for the first time. How could something so light, weigh so damn much? Her father’s wisdom echoed loudly inside of her head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just because someone carries it well Holly, doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her father, quiet in his words, quiet in life, always managed to find a way for the fewest words to have the deepest impact.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That single pencil, now rolling between her fingers, carried the weight of 15 years and then some. It was worn so thin that the lead had become visible in some spots. The Linus blanket aspect of it was not lost on her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bundle in her nightstand was used for writing. The one in her hands now, the one that had set up a permanent residency in her purse, was a calming mechanism, if nothing else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tapping it softly against the coffee table, wood hitting wood, her admission to him earlier, leapt to her lips again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess I thought you might need it back one day.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shaking her head at her own awkwardness when it came to him, the tapping continued as she replayed his answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t really need to bring the pencil. Just bring you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So after all this time… with years (meaning many months )behind them, his answer to her was that she didn’t need to create a reason to come back. That he wanted her there without having to fabricate an excuse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And with that thought resonating so soundly in her mind, she did what he asked of her. The pencil stayed. And her purse, and her heart, felt considerably lighter for it as she grabbed her coat and locked the front door behind her.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Again, Hollis’ divorce is not canon, but in my humble opinion, it absolutely should be.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Staying an hour longer to wrap the case had put him a half hour behind but it was a small price to pay on a Friday for not having paperwork first thing on a Monday.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he was being completely honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely sure she would be there. He could talk himself into believing she would be and then, in the same breath, talk himself out of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With Jack, with Kate, he’d always known. Their need to comfort and soothe outweighed their pride. But Hollis? Her drum corps tapped out a beat all of its own and it was damn near the sexiest thing about her. It was what had drawn him right in. And apparently Dr. Trauma Surgeon had noticed it too. Jealousy was not becoming of him but it never stopped the twinge he felt when he thought of the diamond that had glinted and taunted him since the last time she had been there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Did he push the truck a little faster on the drive home today? Had there been a noticeable lightness in his step since seeing her? Had he allowed himself the absolute pleasure of the good memories of her on his drive home? She might not have a spot next to him in bed at night but he could still allow himself the simple delight that the recollection of their time together always gave him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her vehicle parked on the street in front of his house gave his heart a jolt that was unexpected. Opportunities to correct mistakes didn’t often find him. This </span>
  <em>
    <span>particular</span>
  </em>
  <span> correction had been years in the making.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Making a small wager with himself as to what part of the house she would be in, he parked the tired truck in its spot and grabbed the brown bag of Chinese from the front seat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he found no traces of her except a lingering scent, one that threatened to disarm almost on impact, he knew he had lost the bet with his mind. The thunderbolt moment would have been if she </span>
  <em>
    <span>hadn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> been in the basement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew she was tracing his movements by sound. By the creak of the floorboards. No doubt by each breath he took. Setting the bag on the table, he shrugged out of his coat and dropped it over the chair. A quick argument with himself gave way to a quick clothing change. Blue jeans and a Carhartt shirt lead to a search for his basement-boat-building-work boots, that upon short consideration, he realized were parked…in the basement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bag in hand, his socked feet made little noise padding to the basement steps. Hearing the smooth back and forth of sandpaper against wood grain, he couldn’t help the grin that formed on his lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She chose that moment to look up. She always did. Always caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. Always threw him off his game. But being unnerved by her was a guilty pleasure he barely realized he loved indulging in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Staring at a beautiful woman was something DiNozzo would do. Drinking in the simple breathtaking vision of a confident woman? That was a sin wagon to Hades that he’d ride any damn day of the week.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Setting the food bag on the lumber between two sawhorses, he dropped himself to the armchair at the bottom of the stairs. Reaching for his boots, he heard the sandpaper drop to the work bench, the brown paper crinkling as she unloaded the food.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Still a cheap date, huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chuckled as he laced up the boots.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is new.” She nodded to the chair as she grabbed the remaining sauces from the bag.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Uh, Jack…Jacqueline.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So the good doctor had a name. She had tried and failed to ignore the scuttlebutt a few years ago when his name had continually popped up around her office. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Watching his features as he continued, she was able to discern just how deeply he had loved this woman. There had been a difference in him at headquarters earlier. A vibration just low enough not to set off the Richter scale, but when you speak the monosyllabic Gibbsian dialect, it had registered at least a 7.0.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wasn’t a big fan of sandpaper.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quirking one eyebrow, she pulled chopsticks from the bag.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shrugged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Brought it down so she could work on cases while I worked on the boat.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He said it so indifferently, with such nonchalance, that she almost forgot why she shouldn’t believe him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There was a choice?” her words half sarcastic, half accusatory.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His mouth opened to speak, and just as quickly, closed, a frown settling on his lips. Now that he thought about it, maybe there hadn’t been. Maybe up until Jack, sandpaper and sawdust had been requirements on the applications. Had it really been </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> misogynistic, that one sided of a relationship with the women after Shannon?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His brows furrowed, creasing the lines in his forehead. He studied her face, let the weight of her question mix with the heaviness and the sawdust hanging on the air around them. He’d forgotten what those eyes could do to him. What they asked of him without even knowing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pushing himself up out of the chair, he covered the space between them and reached for his box of food. Scooping up the set of chopsticks that belonged to him, she aimed them directly at his chest, pressing dead center on her target.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her head tilted and gave a questioning nod, pressing him to answer the question with actual words instead of his usual language of choice, silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew that Hollis just wanted honesty. That’s all she had ever wanted. Raw, brutal words that answered and informed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the field, she had demanded the words. She had earned the right to demand them. Even his own team had given her the respect that previously had only been allowed to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the bedroom she had demanded the same. She had wanted his words. No other naked woman in his bed had asked of him what she had. If he wouldn’t speak to her in any other aspect of life, he was going to talk to her in the muted lights of the bed they had shared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tender words, ravaging actions. Ravaging words, tender actions. Spelling out </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly</span>
  </em>
  <span> what she had wanted of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But rarely were there words that went deeper than actions. No pillow talk. Nothing that could be considered intimate or shared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A shrug wouldn’t suffice this time. Had there been a choice?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Should’ve been.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Two words. Three syllables. And yet they held the key to their entire year long relationship. His simple acknowledgement damn near made her believe that miracles really did happen outside of church. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This change in you...that was her?” Her eyes narrowed but soft, her voice giving away her envy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sadness in her words settled against his ribcage. An unintended bullseye found its mark. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Might have to send a thank you note and a bottle of bourbon.” A thin smile crossed her lips as she spoke. “I’m assuming she acquired a taste for it like the rest of us?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Us. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A second bullseye. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Us. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The collective group of women that had loved and lost at the mercy of steel blue eyes and carpenter pencils.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew it hurt her to hear about the one woman who had succeeded where all the rest had failed. Hollis Mann was a woman unaccepting of failure, of defeat. But Jack had opened the door for this moment between them to even exist. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The art of an apology was so foreign to him, so utterly uncharacteristic. So much that even now, five years after meeting Jack, two years after letting her go, and with Hollis’ eyes begging for the tiniest scrap of regret, he still had to make a conscious effort not to be a bastard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And in that simple statement, he knew that he had given her everything she needed to know about Jack and the last 5 years. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But since losing Jack, his bourbon intake had been reduced to special occasions. She had somehow managed to change that, too. Just because she had acquired the taste, didn’t mean she hadn’t succeeded in becoming the bourbon</span>
  <em>
    <span> for</span>
  </em>
  <span> him. After they had parted ways, he simply didn’t have the taste for the amber liquid that he once had.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Jack’s taste for bourbon, partnered with his softened demeanor gave her the understanding for what this night was about. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hollis swallowed the lump that formed in her throat, pushed down the jealousy that threatened to escape to her eyes and forced her lips to ask the question that she knew would remain unanswered, at least for tonight. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You or her?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew what she was asking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Who had cut the line, him or Jack? He considered the query carefully, knowing that even with his simply worded answers, it would take longer than this evening to answer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can we save that one for round two?,” he asked, taking another bite, partially to give himself a reason not to talk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded and shrugged. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, Jethro. Had to ask.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chuckled at her simple reply. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Her eyes drifted slowly around the darkened room, trying to pick out all of the changes since her last visit. The overstuffed living room chair had been the most glaring. Smaller nuances had been less discernible but glaring nonetheless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A mason jar labeled Battery Acid Killer filled with what she could only determine as a ridiculous amount of sugar, sat in a corner of the work table. That one did give her an internal chuckle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another mason jar with a collection of decidedly female reading glasses held a spot on the work bench as well. All large frame, the jar held roughly four or five pair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A nod to the nature of her predecessor’s job, a Rorshach on canvas held a spot on a side wall. The edges of the image peeked out from behind the boxes stacked in front of it. Biting the inside of her cheek, pondering the placement of the picture, she wondered if this had always been its place of residence or if it was down here to serve out a life sentence for dereliction of duty. To be covered in layers of sawdust as penance for being a constant reminder of what he had lost. The basement seemed to be a gathering place for all such objects.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And while she took in the room around her, he took in the sight of the woman across from him. She felt his eyes on her as the chopsticks played between her fingers. The box of chow mein in her left hand easily displayed the lack of hardware that he had become accustomed to seeing on her ring finger. She knew what he had zeroed in on. Question was, would he feel the need to finally ask.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hadn’t noticed it immediately. His eyes had landed on other features. She had licked her lips before taking a bite and he had needed to have an active conversation with himself to be able to wrench his gaze away from them. But in leaving her lips, his eyes fell to her neck, to the freckles he had loved to chase with his own lips. He would connect the dots with his tongue as she had tangled her fingers into the silver strands of his hair. His name, whispered on her lips, was not only something he had made a game of making happen, but something he had ultimately found himself begging for. It was those six letters of the alphabet, juxtaposed just right, purred into his ear that…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Suddenly he was very aware of the station his mind had derailed at and he cleared his throat, praying the derailment hadn’t lasted long enough for her to notice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How long?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His nod towards her left hand gave credit to what she already knew was being asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Picking at her food as she spoke, she wasn’t quite able to lift her eyes to meet his.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s been three years.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He did the math. The last time he had run into her was at the diner, a little more than three years ago. Breakfast with Jack, in a corner booth, his back to the wall to always assess his surroundings, he had found himself lost once again in two pools of hazel green when he looked up as the bell over the door had sounded. Ever on guard, she had also done a subtle but quick sweep of the diners patrons, before her eyes had landed on his as she stepped in line to order her coffee. His heart had started the thudding, the way only she had been able to make happen. Jack had been animated and focused on the case file on the table and missed the regret, passion and ache that a half second of opening Pandora’s box had allowed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He vaguely remembered wondering what she had been doing on that side of town. As if she heard his mind asking the question from three feet away, she answered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The divorce lawyer’s office was around the corner.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She picked around at her food some more. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ And you looked…happy,” she answered, in anticipation of the next question. The question of why her feet had led her out of the diner door that day instead of to his booth. The question of why the texts and check-ins had slowed to a stop after that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hands stilled, her eyes finally meeting his. He read the damage of those words across her whole face this time, not just in her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had wanted that happiness with her. But he hadn’t been ready. He hadn’t been ready the handful of times before that either. It had taken the subtle (and often, not so subtle) words and actions of a Dr. Jacqueline Sloane to show him that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span>, finally, ready.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Trying to cover the hurt, she backtracked to her own conversation. “He was a great guy. Brilliant surgeon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So he was good with his hands, too?” he teased, trying to lighten the heaviness of the air surrounding them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And he loved me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sounds like a winner.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Yeah, he was.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No flaws? No skeletons?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She took a deep breath before she answered, almost as if she were planning on being underwater for an extended amount of time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He silently debated whether he had to ask the question out loud. He didn’t have to wait long. Her words were thunderous in his ears and he heard echoes of Diane in every syllable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He wasn’t you.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It shouldn’t have surprised him that she would be brutally honest in her answer. Her tone had been quiet and matter of fact. It wasn’t wistful or lamenting. She simply spoke what she knew to be true. She always had. One of the things he had loved about her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Loved. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And there it was. That word. The one that he had so many times felt slipping from his lips into her heart but that he had reigned back in out of what..? Fear? Protection? The scales had tipped to both sides equally.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fear came from his inability to let go of the past. She’d nailed him with that one years ago, standing three feet from where she stood right now.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wounded? Afraid to love?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he had denied it. Denied her. Denied what could have been because he’d never moved past the twisted roots of grief that continued their steady upward growth inside of him. He’d never learned how to intertwine them with the new sprouts that were attempting to grow alongside the old. The ex-wives club had proven time and again that there was no space for his past inside of his present. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Protection came from the medieval, chivalrous, “it’s a guy thing” attitude that made his chest puff out like a goddamn peacock any time there was a damsel in distress. No matter whether she could handle herself or not. And Army women, he had found out, could absolutely handle themselves. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After Diane died, Hollis had put into words what he already knew to be true about her but didn’t want to hear out loud. Her voice had been low and steady that night but her point was clear as crystal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not your call.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll take my chances.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can handle myself.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had taken him right back to that cold and unforgiving train station bathroom where she had so simply and efficiently disposed of Sharif. Her standard operating procedure was to defend and protect. But that day, hovering over him, her eyes had carried such an unpredicted, unreserved saving grace that there had been no way to stop the forward motion of his feet to her doorstep that same night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> handle herself. Hell, she could probably protect them both better than he could. And her words that night had meant that he had been wrong about her. About not letting her in. About making a decision </span>
  <em>
    <span>for</span>
  </em>
  <span> her and not </span>
  <em>
    <span>with</span>
  </em>
  <span> her. About not allowing her to occupy anything other than a temporary space inside of him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The food in his hands grew cold as he portioned out his thoughts. So Dr. Walter Reed Trauma Surgeon hadn’t measured up. He wondered what her admission had cost her, how much of her soul she had decided to sell in order to allow those words to cross her lips. Probably a much bigger piece than she was willing to part with. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Awkward silences were not something she gave herself up to and sensing that her words might have struck a different chord than she intended, she stood and traded an empty food container for a block of sandpaper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Silence was a strange language, and with him, it was a language all its own. With anyone other than Gibbs, it was a language that demanded words to fill up empty spaces. But the basement always found a way to fill the silence for them. It interpreted the void, and released it as an emotion instead, something that could be felt, rather than heard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes followed her movements and the simplicity of her beauty once again struck him to his very core. God, he owed her so much more than an apology. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the DoD had led her straight back to him eight years ago, she hadn’t shirked her responsibilities. She hadn’t pawned the case off on another agent. He couldn’t imagine the strength it had taken for her to climb those stairs again. When he’d told Leon she was close enough to being his fourth ex-wife? He certainly hadn’t been wrong. He had married the other three on a lot less than he had felt for Hollis.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then after Diane died it had been all he could do not to disappear into another bottle. And she had been right there. The Gibbs Whisperer. Tony had received a proper head slap for that one once he’d caught wind of it but the younger man certainly hadn’t been wrong in his assumption.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hollis read the Book of Gibbs like an ancient scroll, meticulously written, riff with hidden meanings. She read it like children’s literature, simple, direct and easy to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The fact that she had continued jumping into the fire, continued their friendship, continued what could only be considered a masochistic tendency of affections towards him…just proved that no matter how cut and dried, no matter how many nice, neat boxes she tried to put it in, no matter how black and white she made her life, he would always be her grey area.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Too many times she had seen him dangling on the edge and struggled to pull him back. It was exhausting for him to live it every day. He could only imagine what she had seen from the outside looking in, could only imagine the emotional toll it had taken on her, to choose between standing back or attempting to save a drowning man, time and again, with nothing more than a pair of chopsticks and an umbrella.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The apology she needed, the apology she deserved, was barely something that could be accomplished with words. He knew before he even took the leap that he would fail miserably. And, better than anyone, he knew what had caused most of his previous apologies to fail.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pride.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Every damn time. Because apologizing would mean acknowledging that he made a mistake. But if he had taken anything away from his time with Jack, it was that an apology created an intimacy between two people, between the forgiveness that would now be shared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Absolution, atonement, penance, repentance…whatever you wanted to call it, he owed it to her in spades. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sound of sandpaper sliding against wood grain caught his attention, brought his thoughts back to the moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watched the back and forth of her fingers, the cadence of the sand grain scraping against timber, steady and smooth. He remembered a time when those same fingers had trailed a smooth and steady path down his chest, finding his desire for her, teasing until the time for teasing vanished.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All at once, the air supply in his lungs simply didn’t seem adequate enough to compensate for the conversation he was about to start. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were right, you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hands paused, sawdust taking flight as the sandpaper stuttered to a stop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes caught his and he almost paused for the softness that had suddenly appeared in them, a stark contrast to the masked sadness he had read in them only minutes before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“About the 3 billion men in the world.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her light laugh lifted his heart slightly and gave him the push he didn’t know he was searching for. When she spoke, her hands were still and her voice was the softest he’d ever heard it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t need the 3 billion.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes again focused on the softened lumber below her, hands moving once more with the grain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The clear surety of his voice almost made it worse, almost made her reach for words that burned, instead of the truth. Her voice gained only a small amount of volume. She needed him to hear what she said next.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Only needed yo—“ His hands stilled hers as his words stopped her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So why couldn’t you…” But she couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, her voice breaking over him, causing his gut to clench and twist, his level of guilt increasing tenfold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Hol.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eyes lifted. Matched gazes held. Sawdust sifted down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damn it. Did those words really seem as empty as they had sounded?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Holly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I heard you,” she said thinly, pulling her hands away from his. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ ‘Know you heard me. Just want to make sure you’re listening.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Watching her fingers run across the smooth expanse of the wood, checking for rough patches, he wondered how long she was going to make him tread water. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He suddenly felt the need to repeat his apology, if for no other reason than it deserved to be said again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He saw only a slight misstep in her movements as his words settled in the air around her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Taking a few steps backwards, his eyes stayed steady on her. He dropped himself into the armchair by the stairs, the cushions worn and rumpled from the weight of two people spending countless hours hashing out cases, spending hours in each other’s space. When his voice started again, there was a crack in it that lifted her eyes from the lumber. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His shoulders slumped slightly as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “For letting you apologize 8 years ago. For making you feel like you weren’t who I wanted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He paused, lifted his head and looked directly into the sea of green that had braided a paracord around the outer edges of his heart. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> “For…being a bastard.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Too little, too late. That was the knee jerk reaction. He could see it in her eyes. It was too easy, too clean. He expected her to what? Forgive and forget?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had broken her. Had literally seen the pieces shatter around her all those years ago. And then he’d had the fucking nerve to allow </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> to apologize. Apologize. For </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> fucking mistakes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was better than that. Stronger than that. But at the heart of the matter, after the Army green was stripped away, the vulnerability of green eyes was what was left. And like every other human being on the planet, she wanted to be wanted, wanted to find the connection with another soul that she could attach herself to. God, how he had wanted to be that person for her. The amount of alcohol he had consumed after losing Hollis was tantamount only to the amount of sugar Sloane drudged into her coffee each morning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watched her step to the work table and back up against it with an easy lean, the sandpaper block shuffling between her hands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The old bourbon, boats and bastard theory? Was wondering when you’d get around to that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“S’true.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Only if you let it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stopped the movement of her hands, pushing her back off the table, her shoulders squaring up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But the bigger question,” she said, pausing to reattach a new piece of sandpaper to the block, “is why.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watched her hands move back and forth. Whether there had been a choice or not, whether she wanted to or not, her hands, like his, found comfort in the steady motion of sand grain against wood grain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew she would continue without him asking but he wanted to hear his voice. Needed to gauge the steadiness of it. So </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> questioned </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> question. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Why.” Her words started gathering momentum as she spoke. “Why did </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> have to be the bastard, hmm?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pushed the sandpaper harder against the wood. Now jealous of the wood that claimed her attention, he wanted to see her eyes. He needed to read the unspoken. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why couldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, for one goddamn minute, let someone else carry that weight? Why did it </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> have to be you?” A wisp of hair lost its place and fell across her cheek as she continued her back and forth motion against the wood, bent over it,  still not raising her eyes to his but then he tried to speak and she cut him off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There’s 3 billion other men in this world that could have been a bastard for just one day.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her frustration with herself and with him had finally found a landing spot square in his chest. She wasn’t giving him another chance to smooth things over, to smile that disarming smile and make her melt and go along with whatever he said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bringing herself to her full height, eyes snapping an angry shade of green, she could barely camouflage the hurt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You wear it like a goddamn Medal of Honor, like it’s something to be proud of.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His jaw tightened, twitched. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that it, Jethro? You’re proud of the trail of women you’ve broken? Or is it still just about you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His name on her lips, echoed in her eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fuck. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t buttons being pushed, it was his reflection mirrored back from the woman across from him. It was the familiarity of his own direct, brutally honest, no prisoners, passionate, wickedly raw, ravaging, vulnerable self.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hollis, I-” he started but she cut him off once more, fighting to keep her voice steady.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want your excuses.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sound of silence was suddenly excruciating around them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want the truth. Can you at least…,” her voice breaking ever so slightly over her words. “For once.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elbow resting on his knee, he rubbed his fingers across his lips, trying out the words inside his head before letting them fall between them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You scared the shit outta me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Past tense?” she quipped.  “I must be losing my touch.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You knew what you wanted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And </span>
  <em>
    <span>that’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> what scared you?” She had to work hard to keep the incredulousness out of her voice. “That I wanted you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No…I mean, yes.” He scraped a hand through silver strands, aggravated at himself, at his confusion, at the way her simple questions had unraveled him. “You wanted it differently.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Her words were slowly spoken, with a slight shake of her head, one hand now resting on her hip, the other gripping sandpaper against sawhorse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wanted it to be different with you. Felt…different with you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She huffed, her hands resuming their motion against the wood grain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nice try.” Her words failed to keep the disappointment from thickening them. “Heard that one before.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stood, knees protesting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not from me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The room suddenly settled into silence as her hands stopped their motion and she turned to face him. Tilting her head slightly, her arms crossed in front of her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Does it mean something different coming from you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew battle mode when he saw it. The defenses were going up again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Only 4 women in 40 years that it was different with.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And just as quickly as the quills had gone up, they settled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watched the words turn over in her mind, attempting to put names with numbers, stumbling for the only one she couldn’t place. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was good with us, Holly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Back straightening, body tightening, she tucked her hands into her pockets and caught his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heard that one before, too.” She leaned in, speaking again before he had a chance to contradict. “And what’s your rule about wasting good?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His voice was barely above a whisper when he answered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’d reached the point in the conversation where she knew she had him dead to fucking rights. She had used his own rule to make her point. She hadn’t twisted it, stretched it or made even one piece of it fit where it didn’t belong.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His father’s words echoed in his ear. “The axe forgets, Leroy, but the tree </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> remembers.” The advice that he had paid so little attention to while the old man was alive, now reverberated loudly inside of his mind, hitting all the right notes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Debating his next step, his eyes drifted anywhere but hers and landed on a tape player on the top shelf above the work bench. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> particular grenade-in-a-sandtrap moment he had never forgotten. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The raw and ugly wounding that had marred the features of a breathtaking woman in low basement lights. The streak from salted tears that he had tried to wipe away before she had gathered her coat. The softness of her lips against his, whispering tears against them. Tears from a seemingly unbreakable woman. And yet, there she had been, falling to pieces all around him.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had known the signs. Recognized the hurt. But had let her feet continue up the stairs, across the hardwood, out into the cool October evening, even as he had swallowed down her name.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After that, it had been a rerun of the same tired episode, day after day, as he had secretly hoped that she would appear one night, bourbon in hand, willing to make amends. Willing to pick up exactly where they left off, minus the tears. Willing to allow him to once again love her through actions, not words. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Months</span>
  <span>,</span>
  <span> meaning many weeks, stacked up on each other and disappeared behind him until the anger dissipated, replaced with the usual numbing sensation that he craved. The lack of emotion that kept him empty but mobile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Had he wasted good? With Hollis, he’d wasted it implicitly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This was usually the part in the apology where he’d close back up, if he’d somehow managed to let an opening exist. But he needed her to now understand what had not been understood previous to this moment. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was damn good...and I never told you that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure you did.” Her shoulders shrugged. “You just never said it with words.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You deserved my words.” His hands covered hers to stop the movement against the wood. “You’re gonna have to confirm or deny that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She met his eyes and a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Using her own words against her… And in that moment she knew that he hadn’t forgotten her. That her presence in his life had made a deeper impact that she realized.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because that place in his heart where she had resided, where she had so simply and efficiently marked off as hers, was still there. This time though, she read </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> eyes and it was quite possibly one of the most terrifying moments of his life. Because he knew damn well what she’d find in the ocean depths.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Suddenly chilled after a few moments of stillness, he caught her body giving an involuntary shiver, the cool October air having found its way to the lower portion of the house.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Cold?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She gave him a wry grin. “Army doesn’t do cold.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Neither does the Marines.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The carpenter pencil in his hand slid behind his ear as he made his way to the other side of the room. Sliding a few boxes to the left, pulling at least two more off the shelf completely, he blindly reached for a memory he had kept tucked away, if for no other reason than the comfort and company it had afforded him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>                   *****</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The jacket had laid across a sawhorse, exactly as she had left it, for a little over a year after her speedy departure, serving as a gilded reminder of failure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At the time, his narrow-minded, blinders-on view of the situation saw only one version of the scene. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She</span>
  </em>
  <span> had never asked. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She</span>
  </em>
  <span> had never tried. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She</span>
  </em>
  <span> had walked away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not once had it been a statement to him that he had fucked up. That </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> lack of words, lack of emotion, lack of anything a normal human being could offer, had caused her to leave.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But over the years, as boxes shifted around it, as a light layer of sawdust laid on top of it, the grey material would draw his eyes and give him pause. His inward concessions of remorse and regret toward her eventually dug a hole deep enough to take root but by then it had been too late.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>             ******</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was waiting for the token USMC hoodie to land in front of her. Silently she mused over how many exes had kept the pilfered shirts. She shook her head. Why ask a question you already know the answer to? The answer was…all of them. All of them except one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The comfort of having the sweatshirt wrapped around them when he wasn’t had probably gotten each of the women through more than one lonely night. Faulting the ones prior to her however, would be hypocritical at best, as her eyes landed on a jar of carpenter pencils tucked into a corner of the work table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the jacket that was lightly tossed to her was considerably not his size and even more considerably not USMC. Straightening the fabric out across the work bench, her fingers traced the letters marked across the front.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> ARMY.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The words on the tip of her tongue bordered on accusatory. The rumor mill in DC that had placed him with the psychologist a few years ago - blonde, brilliant, and stunning - was the same rumor mill that had tagged her bleeding as Army green as she did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hollis’s eyes now took on the piercing interrogation quality that worked on every single suspect she encountered. But before her question fell between them, her fingers traced over a snag in the material. Glancing down, the hole in the grey material opened up a hole in her memory. She knew without looking, feeling his stare, that his heart had docked at the same memory.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The batting cages. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had snagged on the fence on their way in. She didn’t realize she had left it behind back then but, she had, over the years, questioned herself on its whereabouts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That was a good time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chuckled at the memory of bat cracking against ball. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Always found ways to surprise me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her smile matched his. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Meant it as one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And she knew that he did. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sliding the jacket on, she felt the pull of the past 15 years. Felt the cache of memories collapsing on top of her as she pulled the zipper slowly to a stopping point. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He admired the way it was still a perfect fit. He’d damn near bet a challenge coin that the ACU’s were still a perfect fit as well. Various parts of his anatomy were still absolutely interested in finding out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His mind slid back to the tightness of the green digital camo, the way it had accentuated her lithe body. He had spent the better part of two months after their first meeting trying to assess what was beneath the strict Army dress code. And the hair? Good Lord, that had very nearly been his absolute undoing. The tight French braid that had caught his attention above </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> below his belt line. The raw and visceral reaction he’d had to it, to the need to undo it with his own fingers, had startled him at first. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the early mornings they had shared, he had watched her from the bed, swiftly and deftly threading each strand of the beautiful blonde tresses. The braid was always so tight, so perfect, tucked under, teasing him, willing him into an act of insubordination against a superior officer. And it would forever be a test of his patience, every goddamn time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She caught his stare and her eyes narrowed, questioning his thoughts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wondering if you ever put your hair up in that braid anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She raised an eyebrow and chuckled when he shrugged and threw up his hands, Peter Pan mischief shining behind feigned innocence when he spoke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>That's</span>
  </em>
  <span> what you were thinking?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You asked.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She did put it up in the braid, occasionally, rarely. Although she certainly wasn’t ready to admit out loud the thoughts of him that assaulted her each time she did. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sometimes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Always looked good on ya.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her moment of surprise was not lost on him. His compliments were as rare as the Hope diamond but no less stunning upon delivery.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Able to see your eyes better when it was back.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thought you liked my ass?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> like her ass. Loved it in fact. Was he supposed to deny it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His body leaned sideways, making sure she saw where his eyes landed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Still do.” A nod and a grin confirmed his words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wh’makes ya think there’s a but?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is there?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Stepping into her bubble, ridding the space between them, his eyes sought out the only green ones he’d ever fallen for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Toe to toe, a kiss away from a forgotten apology, his minded pleaded with her not to lick her lips. They parted and he could all but taste them. Taste the love that he was sure still lingered there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Always loved seeing your eyes. Never seen any other like ‘em.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A blush hit her cheeks before she had a chance to catch it. His head dipped, lips pressed against her ear, a whisper that only knew her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Told ya, you forgot charming.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She slapped at his chest and pushed against him, trying to create oxygen where very little remained. But the words hung between them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That charm’ll only get you so far, Jethro.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Never heard any complaints from you before,” he teased. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The room suddenly became very still as she seemed to collect all of the oxygen into her lungs all at once. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Funny…” she said, her eyes narrowing, the entire tone of their surroundings suddenly turned sideways. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His head started back slightly, tilted, curiosity reading across his features. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And here I was thinking I’d been pretty clear about what I wasn’t getting from you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The tightness that he suddenly found in his chest closed in on his throat, threatening the air supply he was in such desperate need of. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I deserved to know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The pit of his stomach accepted the heavy thud of his heart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> But how could he tell her? How could he put into a few words the level of raw, eviscerating pain that telling the other women had caused him over the years.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I shouldn’t have had to find out about them from Ducky.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her marksmanship certainly hadn’t deteriorated over the years. That one ripped a much bigger hole in his gut than he’d thought possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t change what happened, Hol.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not asking you to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then what </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> you asking?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he already knew. Those eyes that had loved him also spoke volumes when there were no words to be found. She wanted to know why. The shaded green begged the question of him. Begged to know why every other woman had been privy to the information </span>
  <em>
    <span>except</span>
  </em>
  <span> her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not telling Hollis about his first wife and daughter years ago had been a decision that had kept him up nights, buried in a basement with a bottle and a boat named Kelly. Battling each day with a choice to divulge the information had worn him down, exhausting him in a way that only emotions can. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ultimately the decision not to tell her had come from a need to do things differently. To change…the circumstances. And the fact that it had failed in epic fashion had simply given credit to his “second B is for bastard” theory. Which Hollis had been quick to tell him how unimpressed she was with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> he kept it from Hollis when it had come rolling off his tongue to Jack, to Kate, to every other woman </span>
  <em>
    <span>except</span>
  </em>
  <span> her? What had he been so afraid of?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All she had wanted were words. An explanation. An opening. But if he had given her an inch, she would have taken a mile. Or at least that’s what he’d figured at the time. Now, looking back, he wasn’t so sure. That’s what the others had done. But Hollis was decidedly not like the others. She had been a breath of fresh air after years of stifling compressed heaviness. A different kind of oxygen that filled his lungs, possibly even his heart. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wasn’t ready to let them go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stepped closer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t that she didn’t hear what he was saying, it was that she couldn’t believe it was actually coming from him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What makes you think you had to?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shook his head slightly as if this was the first time he had heard those words. What was it about the Army girls? Always asking the hard questions.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They had all wanted him to let go, to move on, to move forward. All but Jack. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hollis read the furrowing of his brows, the slight downward turn of his pressed lips, the twitch of his jaw. Realization washed over her. Poured over her like a bucket of ice water. Her eyes widened as she spoke. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Jesus, Jethro, you didn’t have to let go. Didn’t any of them ever tell you that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The part of him that wanted to ignore the question, the part of him that would have previously continued with the measuring of the plank in front of him – that part of him almost won the battle. But none of his female related problems had ever been solved by hiding in the wood grain. Truth be told, it only exacerbated the problems. Made them bigger, wider, easier to hold on to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s it, isn’t it? They </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be the replacement. They wanted to be the one to make you forget.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His head snapped up, eyes narrowing, questioning, immediately defensive of the women that had come before her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She had no right to judge them. She had no idea what he had put them through, knowingly or unknowingly. The nights that his side of the bed had remained cold and empty while theirs filled up with tears. The one sided conversations. The guilted looks that plagued marriages after only a few weeks. Hollis hadn’t seen that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then again…maybe she had. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe he had used the same tactical plan for his relationship with her that he had used for all of the others. Save for one very important detail.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not their fault,” he said, his voice almost an echo in the emptiness surrounding them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It is when they’re asking you to let go of something they don’t fully understand.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They knew.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So did I. Knowing and understanding, Jethro. Apples and oranges.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They knew more than you did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That one stung. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Still didn’t make them comprehend any better, did it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shrugged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Still didn’t stop them from expecting you to move on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did any of those women look you dead in the eye- even once-and tell you that it was okay to miss them, okay to talk about them, okay to include them?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Jack did,” he said as his voice curled around her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know damn well I’m not talking about her,” she said, her voice low, clear and with a jealousy that threatened to reach her eyes before it crossed her lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Catching the lacerated sting of her words, he read the cost of them in the pools of green that saw straight through him. The ache of her voice, the sadness he heard. It wasn’t a sadness for herself. It was once again, a sadness for him. A blatant honest attempt to save him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So </span>
  <b>
    <em>one</em>
  </b>
  <span> woman? In </span>
  <b>
    <em>thirty</em>
  </b>
  <span> some years?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He inhaled every molecule of oxygen his lungs would allow, the muscles of his chest tightening as it expanded. God, how was she so dead-on every damn time? The fucking Gibbs Whisperer, that’s how. She left no opening for him to answer before she continued, her voice at an almost tremble.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You went DECADES without hearing it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The cold air in the room threatened to turn frigid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Seeing his raw pain, the thick, dense hurt that was treading water just below the surface, she almost faltered. He attempted to turn from her, the immediate Gibbs gut reaction to divert and avoid finding its way to the surface, but her fingers found a handful of material and held tight. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because they all wanted to be another Shannon for you. They wanted to be the reason you moved on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He let her words sink into his brain, funnel down to where he knew the answers were hidden. He answered her questions in his mind, not trusting them out loud yet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Boot tip met boot tip and she gave up none of the space between them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You never even gave me a chance.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watched the flames rise inside of her eyes, praying silently that the ocean blue of his would somehow douse them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>damn</span>
  </em>
  <span> good with us,” she conceded, “but it never went below the surface.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was close enough to examine her beauty and he drank it in. But she was waiting for his words, not his wandering eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Any idea what year I joined the Army, Jethro?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His mouth opened and then closed, as his thoughts paused. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Or what college I went to?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a year in a relationship with her, paired with the fact that he was a seasoned investigator, these were questions he should have had an answer for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How about the town I grew up in? Any thoughts on that one?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His heart sank lower in his chest with each unknown answer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>God, what he must have put this woman through. 'Bastard' was too nice of a word. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only thing he knew to try was the one thing he hadn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘M’ere. Got something to show you.” He crooked a finger at her as he spoke. The question showed on her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Giving a short nod to the stairs, he grabbed her hand and tugged her up behind him. Leading her to the couch, he dropped them both to the cushions, unlacing his fingers from hers as he reached to the bottom shelf of the coffee table. He pulled a couple of aged photo albums into their laps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Realization dawned on her and she felt the urge to talk him down. She didn’t need him to drag out the little part of his heart that was still intact and put it on display for her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But what she didn’t realize, was that the pictures were part of the apology. They were the part about strength. The easy part, so to speak, were the words. The harder part was the actions.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In her lap, he pieced together a picture of a family, of a husband, of a father, of a man. A man who she knew absolutely nothing about. A man that had been hidden from her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somewhere in the middle of the memories, her hand had found his underneath the album. Strength, forgiveness, acceptance… all through touch. Through interwoven fingers that knew each other intimately but hadn’t had a conversation in years.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hol, I…” his words drifted off as his fingertip traced the outlines of a woman and child that only remained in the deepest recesses of his battered heart. But this time, their smiles gave him strength, not sadness. Another breath in and out between them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t tell you about them because…” He let the air fill up his lungs completely before he finished. “Because three divorces proved that I was the common denominator.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was grateful for the squeeze of her hand, a silent assurance that his words were not making a bigger mess of the situation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Changing any damn part of the equation…I thought maybe...maybe you wouldn’t leave like the rest of them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This time, his fingers squeezed hers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But I left anyway.” The soft catch of tears in her throat threatened to find her eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His lips pressed together, heart pinched as he struggled with her words. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t blame ya.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her thumb drew circles against his skin as she spoke .</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right people, wrong time. It happens.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turned his head, shaking it back and forth as he spoke. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘S'more than that. I wanted this with you Holly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An admission fifteen years in the making. Words that she had all but begged for echoed loudly in the sparsely furnished room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Setting the albums carefully back on the coffee table, she turned to face him, sliding her knee into the cushions, head resting on her hand as she propped her elbow on the back of the couch. Before she could speak, his low voice found her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Remember what I said to you that night?” Leaning forward, elbows resting on knees, head dropped into his hands, he didn’t wait for her to answer. “I told you you should’ve just asked.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Remember? Hell, she’d had it whittled on her damn heartstrings for the past 9 years. Her hand reached to his knee.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His head tilted to the side to catch her eyes as he continued. “You asked plenty.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damn. She almost asked him to repeat himself, unsure if she had heard correctly. The good doctor must have been </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>good at what she did. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jealousy nipped around her heart, threatening a moment of rippled envy against a woman whom she had never met, yet who had captured the one thing she never had. His heart. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His voice, uncharacteristically unsteady, broke into her thoughts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just couldn’t let go. Couldn’t let you in.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hand reached to his face, a finger catching against his jaw, turning it towards hers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I get it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Soft blue met even softer green. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shouldn’t have to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A heartbeat passed between them. He leaned forward and slid a picture of Kelly out of the album. His fingers traced the smile, the braids, the eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She would’ve been 40 this year.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>An unmistakable chill crept across her body. Her eyes fell to his profile, catching the threat of tears that he was valiantly fighting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey...hey.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She grabbed his hand, tugging, forcing him to face her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have to do this. Not tonight.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But she was wrong. He reached for her hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Might not get another chance.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her features went soft with an understanding he had never seen in her before. She pushed herself off the couch, cold air immediately replacing the warmth where she had been. His hand shot out, catching her by the pocket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her fingers covered his, knowing he felt the sudden emptiness just as she did. She squeezed his hand and tugged away, walking the few steps to the dining room table where her purse hung on a chair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Untucking a small piece of paper from her wallet, she hesitated for a moment. He watched her shoulders drop slightly as the paper unfolded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With a deep breath filling her lungs, she turned and covered the ten steps between them, dropping back down to her spot next to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes slanted to the black and white image in her hand and immediately his heart hit ground zero. He didn’t want her to say the words. Didn’t want her to have to divulge the details. Didn’t want her to have to endure any more pain than he had already put her through.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My son would’ve been 37.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sonogram photo passed between her fingers, brushing with his as he accepted it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She knew he wouldn’t ask. Knew he would wait for her to offer. So she gave him the only answers he needed right now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stillbirth at 4 months. Eli Henry. The year I joined the Army.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In a corner of his brain, he could see the blonde hair and freckles. The green eyes that would have matched hers perfectly. Tall, broad shouldered. A young man following in the military footsteps of his mother.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And in that moment, he wondered. He wondered if the pain of losing a child before you knew their laugh, before their tiny fingers curled around yours, before you even got a chance to hold them, was the same as having 8 years worth of memories. He found the answer in her eyes and he knew that the pain was the same. Maybe even worse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He also knew that he wasn’t getting any more out of her on that topic tonight than had already been offered. When she stood to tuck the photo back in her wallet, he stood as well, contemplating the question he was about to ask.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look, tomorrow’s Saturday.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His finger crooked into her back pocket and spun her around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How bout the batting cages? Slow speed this time?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The offer was extended without pretense, without expectation but with every intonation of friendship, of possibilities.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She studied him for a full thirty-two seconds. Counted the number of age lines that had weathered his features since the last time she had seen him. Took in the solid silver strands that her fingers itched to run through. And finally her eyes landed on his.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Years ago, duty had demanded professionalism from them. So their relationship had encountered a lot of conversations in the strange language of silence. Silence and stares.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A hand to his cheek, she lifted up to press a soft kiss to his lips. A statement of an apology accepted, and of a promise proffered. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His arms tightening around her were the actions of the apology – the act of generosity, of love, of courage. And her arms around him were the embracing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This time, </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> kissed </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>, stronger, with no apology to attach it to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Never in his life had he been given an opportunity for a makeup test. Not with Shannon. Not with Kate. Not with Jack. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But here was Hollis, the woman with zero fucks to give, raising him a Benjamin before she called him on his bullshit. The woman who reentered and resumed right dead center of where she left off, elapsed time notwithstanding.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Undeserving as he might have felt of the opportunity, he knew this might be his swan song, his last opportunity at happiness on this side of the dirt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pick you up at 8?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t even know where I live. I’ll pick </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> up at 8.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She heard his chuckle and found that the grin that lit up his face now matched his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That smile gonna be there in the morning, too?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He caught a belt loop, giving it a tug, bringing her back to him. Her hands landed on his chest between them, where he was damn sure she could feel the drum line.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You forgot something.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He slid the carpenter pencil from its place behind his ear and tucked it safely into the back pocket of her jeans, giving it a pat for good measure and security. He watched every possible shade of green filter through her eyes, ending with honey highlights that damn near had him begging for that goddamned interference they were so intimately fond of. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tomorrow.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was as much a statement as it was a promise. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tomorrow,” came the echo back from her lips. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pushed against his chest, and he reluctantly released the belt loop but his broad palm still rested on her hip. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Following her to the door, he helped her into her coat. She grabbed his hand and squeezed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then she was gone. But this time, with a quiet assurance that she would be back. This time, with the promise that it would be different, a promise that, 10 years ago, would've scared the hell outta him. As he dropped himself onto the couch and stretched the length of it while he waited for the text of her safe arrival, the album under the table caught his eye again, caught his heart again, but in a way that made it bloom open, rather than squeeze shut. She had done that. Made </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> do that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The house had gone quiet, and his brain told him it needed to do the same. For now. Adjusting his position to fit into the shape the couch only knew to be his, he let his eyes drift shut, thinking only about how he was going to need to buy a whole damn pallet of carpenter pencils.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hollis being pregnant is not canon. Nothing even remotely along those lines was ever mentioned on the show. But it was one more thing I couldn’t get out of my head and it for so perfectly here that I made it head canon. </p>
<p>For anyone who doesn’t know Hollis, or would like to know Hollis, or- like me -just continues to mercilessly watch, wanting to see Gibbs with some semblance of happiness...here’s a list of all of her episodes:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sandblast (4x7)</p>
<p>Sharif Returns (4x13)</p>
<p>Skeletons (4x17)</p>
<p>Grace Period (4x19)</p>
<p>In the Dark (4x22)</p>
<p>Ex-File (5x3)</p>
<p>Lost &amp; Found  (mentioned) (5x9)</p>
<p>Kill Chain (11x12)</p>
<p>We Build, We Fight (12x13)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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